Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Stefan Tiedje <Stefan-Tiedje AT addcom.de>]

drew Roberts wrote:
> Ah, but after thirty generations of combinations, what then. I understand how 
> it could be clean and simple in the first generation.

In art its much more likely to have only one generation. I don't even 
know one musical piece which is the arrangment of an arrangement. If 
you're going to arrange some music you'd always take the original to 
start with. This question has no practical meaning beside programming 
and maybe DJing (But even as a DJ you would just pass compensation to 
your sources, and those could pass on if necessary).

> > almost, it would be either BY-SA-FCE (Fair Compensation Encouraged) or
> > BY-SA-NC-FCR (Fair Compensation Required) where it means the commercial
> > use requires a compensation, but the user will determine the amount,
> > which will be accepted in any case. The latter would not need a change
> > in the BY-SA-NC license, because the FCR would only cover the commercial
> > use. It could then be redistributed either just with BY-SA-NC or again
> > BY-SA-NC-FCR The FCR would add some freedom, as its possible to use it
> > commercially under hopefully easy to understand circumstances.
>
>
> I need to read that again and try to digest it when I am not so tired.

I digested myself a little further:
There are two aspects: Simplicity/ease of use, and the use of a well 
known brand (CC).

For the case of BY-SA-NC-FCR its already possible, as the NC license 
does not cover the commercial use. I could just give it away as BY-SA-NC 
and additionally independently as FCR. But the sole FCR is missing the 
ease of use, because its not wide spread or well known enough.

The Case of BY-SA-FCE is more complicated, as the license itself would 
need a clause which requires to look at the FC-description as part of 
the license which must not be removed, though there is no legal 
difference in practice in comparison to a pure BY-SA.

The idea of Fair Compensation is only one possible way of expressing a 
wish of the creator that could be accompanied with the work. It could be 
anything else. (Like: please pray for my damned soul, give a dollar to 
the refugees, send me an e-mail... or what ever you might think of)

In most cases I could think of BY-SA as the ideal license if I just 
could attach something to it which must not affect any legal issues of 
the original BY-SA licenes, but is like the obligation to name the 
author (BY) to also express the authors other thoughts.
This could be called (BY+). Its would be like BY, but with the 
obligation to add a text, which is not part of the work, but part of the 
license.
If we would find a clear way to modify the license and still be able to 
call it CC (as a brand name) this could be a solution.

> You could of course, suppress the need and find a free work that inspires you 
> and start your creation from there.

No thats impossible, it would just make it impossible to publish that 
work at all.
Normally its not a big deal, I once made a piece based on a poem of 
Ingeborg Bachmann, I just asked the publisher and they told my "go 
ahead". No compensation involved as far as I know.

> You guess wrong. Severl years ago, it would have been a good guess, but not 
> today. Today, I actively seek out Free Music (libre) and am spending my own 
> money and time towards the creation of Free Music.
>
> I also only want to give minimal if any cranial capacity to non-free works. It 
> is too restricting of my own creativity as you touched on above.

You're limiting yourself that way ;-)

> Freedom is a powerful thing. It can hurt, but it is better than chains.

And its also always the question about the freedom of whom. The idea of 
a copyright of the creators of a work was a big step towards freedom for 
the creators. They suddenly could decide about compensation. At the same 
time it was less freedom for the publishers, they could not just make 
profit without fair compensation.
Nowadays the world has changed. We have to consider freedom of people 
and freedom of copies of works, which are two completely different 
beasts. I think the freedom of humans is more important than the freedom 
of a work. As any author usually does want the works to be spread, there 
is not much danger of loss of works.

Stefan

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        Stefan Tiedje
        Klanggestalter
    Electronic Composition
              &
        Improvisation

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